Stop everything: there’s a heckin' Twitter account that lets you know if can you pet dogs in video games

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Who’s a good boy?

An image of Dogmeat from Fallout 4

Every now and again there comes an idea so good, so pure, that you wonder to yourself a) how you ever lived with it and b) why you didn’t think of it. Those feelings are about to hit you full force, as some gem has created a Twitter account dedicated to answering a very important question about video games: can you pet the dog? Excuse me while I go and pledge my allegiance to them for ever. 

Ok, now that’s done, let’s get down to the cold, hard science of how they measure whether dogs are pet-able or not (shut up, that’s a word). In their Twitter bio the Bestower of Pets and owner of the Twitter account states that “a manual button press resulting in visual representation of petting is required for affirmation”. So it doesn’t matter if your initial cutscene with the dog in question has you stroking their nogging: if there’s not a button you can press at any time to ruffle their fur, you can not pet the dog in the game. 

Games where the dogs can be petted include The Last of Us, Warioware: Touched, Assassin’s Creed 3, Far Cry New Dawn, and many, many more. Some of the games where you can’t pet the dog are The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Fallout 4, and Super Mario Odyssey. That’s information everyone needs to know, but I’m especially disappointed in Super Mario Odyssey. You can put a heckin’ fedora on your shiba inu pup but you can’t pet him!? Must try harder. 

Want more canine content? Here’s our own Sam Loveridge being bamboozled about why Far Cry New Dawn hates dogs so much, or just look below to find out how to get Timber in Far Cry New Dawn if you haven’t stumbled across him yet!

Zoe Delahunty-Light
Zoe Delahunty-Light
Former GamesRadar+ Staff

While here at GamesRadar, Zoe was a features writer and video presenter for us. She's since flown the coop and gone on to work at Eurogamer where she's a video producer, and also runs her own Twitch and YouTube channels. She specialises in huge open-world games, true crime, and lore deep-dives.